


The First Lesson

by VivWiley



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 11:41:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/760926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VivWiley/pseuds/VivWiley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Companion never lies to herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The First Lesson

**Author's Note:**

> The timeline for this is up to and including Heart of Gold.  
> No copyright infringement is intended, and no profit will be made.

A Companion never lies to herself.

Her trade is illusion - lies, deceit, pleasing rounded edges and no seams showing. This is one of the first things a Companion-in-training learns. You are a lie, so you must not lie to yourself. Because Companions read their clients, and respond to their desires, turning themselves into the perfect lies for that moment, that evening, that day, Companions must maintain their own true selves at their cores. You must never lie to yourself. Otherwise you may lose yourself in your own lies. This is the first lesson.

Out here, on the far edges of civilized space, Inara found herself clinging to those years of training. Clinging to her truth and the control at her center. Trying not to lose her way.

 

"You may come in, Mal." She knew her tone was the perfect balance of light amusement and slight disapproval. Voice instruction alone took the better part of a year at the Academy.

He poked his head around the corner, followed by the rest of his body. No small effort went into hiding a grin that threatened to escape her well-trained mask. It wasn't so much the way he sidled into the shuttle, but that he was attempting to look sheepish. It didn't suit him. "Uh, hi...I was about to knock."

"No you weren't." But she rewarded him with the tiniest smile.

"Well...uh..." He just shrugged his shoulders. This was an old game. 

She waited, motionless, as he glanced around her shuttle and then ambled over to pick up an object from her table. This, too, was an old game. For all of his air of effortless command on his ship, she knew that he somehow found her shuttle alien territory. So, almost invariably, he would pick up and toy with some object he found laying on her table - his way of asserting his control over some small part of her environment. Of possessing her for just that small moment.

Lately she had come to the appalling realization that she had been deliberately changing the items on that table with greater frequency. Anticipating what might appeal to him, rather than what would set the most appropriate mood for her clients. She tried not to think about that too hard. This time, she was amused to note that he'd picked up a Calibantean fertility rite statuette. 

She was musing his possible reactions to exactly _what_ that statuette had mostly likely been used for prior to her acquisition, when she realized he'd been speaking.

"...need a new grid-compressor. We're lucky it wasn't more serious, but it means we're moving a little slow. Likely we won't make port at Benedict city until day after tomorrow. I'm sorry if that means you'll miss some appointments."

She tilted her head, trying to decipher the undertone in his voice on the word "appointments." She was never sure if she was wasting her Companion training on him, trying to read undercurrents that weren't really there, or if he was maybe the most subtle man she'd ever met. Then it occurred to her that this time there was really nothing subtle at all.

Fortunately, she'd long ago adopted a tone of light amusement with him. "Thank you for the information, Captain. As I told you when I joined Serenity, I needed assurances that I could keep appointments I made, in so much as such assurances could be offered on a ship like this. My clients will wait for me."

She paused to let him twist, just a little, and to watch his eyes narrow at the slight dig at Serenity. Control, illusion, managed deceit - this was her trade. Sometimes it was so effortless. "But, I understand that sometimes things just break." Slight pause again, letting the quiet spin out between them. "It was awfully kind of you to come tell me this news in person."

He relaxed a little, the corners of his eyes softening in that private warmth she sometimes allowed herself to think was reserved for her. "Not at all. I'll let you know if Kaylee manages to conjure something faster out of our engines. Might be we'll pick up some time."

His news delivered, he looked down at the statue in his hands, as though seeing it for the first time. She could see him squelching the impulse to ask what it was. He'd made that particular mistake before. That time it had been a ceremonial knife used in certain very...specific feminine rituals. He put the Calibantean piece carefully back on the table.

She could read his reluctance to leave, felt the familiar tug-of-war within herself about helping him find that excuse.

"Well, like I said, sorry 'bout that." He turned to go.

She let him get nearly to the door. "Thanks again, Mal. It was very kind of you." One more step. "Particularly on such a busy day."

He turned. "Well, it wasn't - "

"Oh, it must have been terribly busy for you, since you apparently forgot that you already sent Kaylee to tell me about the delay."

She was able to wait almost a full 30 seconds after he left before bursting into very undignified laughter.

~ ~ ~

Fear is just another human response. Because there will always be men or women who try to threaten a Companion, she learns to recognize danger and appropriate fear and then channel that fear into action. To hold the emotion in check while finessing the situation. To maintain the illusion.

Inara was no stranger to fear - but this, this churning in her stomach, this panicky heartbeat against her ribs was entirely new. She knew that almost no one else could tell. Marielle, her first mentor, if she were here, maybe. But no one else. She prayed.

Atherton was sleeping soundly. Not only because tomorrow would be a big day, but also because of the very mild sleeping draught that Inara had put in his rice wine. It was almost nothing, just enough to ensure a very deep sleep. It would have no effect on him in the morning, or even if he should be woken now. But it was an insurance policy.

She slipped through the hallway, listening for any signs of other guests stirring. The hum of the key knob engaging seemed obscenely loud. He was, as she expected, practicing. So, she knew to wait well out of sword's range when she let him know she was there.

She was only a little surprised that he refused her offer of escape. If she were another woman, she would have been flattered by his insistence that he stand up for her honor. Instead, she found familiar fury rising in her. She had survived more than 30 years without a champion - particularly one who seemed bent on insulting her profession every other second. How dare he decide for her when to make a stand? The fury drove away most of her fear.

"Fine...let's see if I can't teach you enough to at least die slowly."

"That's a mighty inspiring speech, there, teach. You give that sort of encouragement to all you...pupils?"

She rolled her eyes, no longer worried about what emotions her face might betray. "Show me what you have."

He lunged at her, and the shock on his face at the ease of her parry was almost worth the tenseness of the overall moment. 

 

Later, after it was all over, and they were drinking wine on the catwalk, watching their improbable cargo mill in the bay, she found herself confessing that she had never had any intention of staying with Atherton. She hadn't meant to tell him that. It felt too much like his winning. But he had been stabbed, and he'd looked at her with those eyes that told her everything and nothing, and so she had to give him at least that much.

She'd covered with her small joke about needing to look after Kaylee, but he had known, and that was okay, too. Because champions deserve a reason to keep fighting. And Companions know when to be gracious losers.

~ ~ ~

He had insisted on escorting her. It was one of those strange, chivalrous traits of his that showed up at such unlikely moments. This planet was no worse than many others at which Serenity had called, and in fact had a strong enough noble class for her to schedule three appointments during their five day stop. But Mal had insisted on walking her to the Commandant's estate. 

They were walking through a market, the aisles between the vendors' stalls just wide enough to allow them to walk side-by-side. Occasionally, his hand brushed hers, and she let the simple pleasure of that casual touch tingle gently along her skin.

She inhaled the complex, exotic aromas of the spices and foods around her. She forgot, sometimes, what real air smelled like. The bustle of the market was a chaotic pulse of sound and color and laughter, so different than the regulated hum of home. She stopped, abruptly.

Mal turned, concerned. "Are you okay?"

"Of course," her training, as always, there, just beneath the surface - the control from which to draw. "I was just...I saw these..." She turned and gestured toward the nearest stand, all the while trying to remember how to breathe.

When had Serenity become "home?" This was not good. This was...she felt her breath ratcheting up, a tight hot spot in her stomach. With no small effort she wrenched her attention back... to her current surroundings. She would deal with this panicked epiphany later. Much later.

Mal had wandered over to the stall she'd gestured at. She prayed to all the gods of her house and any others that might be listening that she hadn't just picked out a butcher stall full of chicken feet and pig toes. 

Tiny breath of relief. It was a scent shop. Mal was picking up the sample sticks one-by-one and sniffing each. As she stepped over to join him. "I need some new incense for…"

And yet again felt her breath leak away. He had closed his eyes, the stick just under his nose. There was, for just a second, naked longing on his face. She leaned toward him, starting to reach for his hand, and dropped her hand away as his eyes suddenly opened.

"This one." His voice was so quiet it was as though she sensed, rather than heard the words. "This is the one." 

She reached up with a hand that only trembled slightly. She didn't think he would notice. She took the incense and inhaled the delicate scent. He was right, she was unsurprised to find. Not her usual scent. Something very close to it, but with an underlay more exotic than her usual. Something very clean, but sharp. Woodsy underpinning to the cardamom and myrrh. 

Her eyes met his in a stripped moment. "Yes. This one."

~ ~ ~

Aside from the occasional party like the one on Persephone, she almost never saw another Companion. That suited her fine. She'd turned her back on the many of the…formal structures of the Guild, and had no interest in returning to that world of politics and petty intrigue. She had been far too good at it.

Seeing Nandi again was bittersweet. She'd loved Nandi like a sister, but there were still certain times in her life that she had no particular need to recall too closely. She had meant it when she'd said that she would have waved Nandi earlier, but had left out that she had had no idea what to say.

They were here now, and there was an immediate problem at hand, and that, at least, was something she knew how to handle. How to react to.

All her career she'd known men like Rance Burgess. Petty, terrified bastards. Petty, terrified bastards who could wreck havoc in ways limited only by their imagination and wealth. Companions were able to steer clear of most of them because of the power of the Guild. She thought again about Mal's comment about how some men might take advantage of Nandi's situation. As if she needed reminding about his ability to be a champion.

She had been thrown by his initial assertion that they were going to run. Even while he offered to take Nandi and her girls with them, it felt wrong. She was struck anew by how little she was able to predict his reactions. All those years of training, and she should have known, but somehow he could keep surprising her.

Then he looked at Nandi, and said, "You're my kind of stupid," and she felt a searing tension sing through her. She told herself it was because they were committing to a showdown with a less than certain outcome.

And then, then there was that morning outside Nandi's bedroom. She had seen the possibility from the moment they met – their commonalities, the strong leaders, the rebels. Had understood the connection that could exist there. Understood they were suited to each other in ways that… Uncertain outcomes were one thing. This certainty in front of her…and once more her training rescued her, even if she couldn't initially maintain eye contact quite as steadily as she would have liked Bright, she thought, light, keep it light, amused. You can lie to him. And she did, until she was out of sight, out of earshot.

And that, that was when she knew. The stories she'd been living with had changed. The stories she told herself as she fell to sleep each night – of control and detachment and lack of jealousy - those stories had changed. So now, she would have to do this thing. Something she should have done before it was too late.

The following day and a half was a godforsaken blur – anger, joy, fear, grief, resignation, and under it all, a longing she could no longer deny. She would have asked for a different outcome, but had learned long ago that regrets were mere luxury.

Looking at him on that walkway of Serenity, on their way out of the moon's atmosphere, she had allowed herself one more moment's hesitation. Had almost let him tell her his truthfulness. But she owed him more than that. Owed him something for which she had no name in any of the languages she spoke. So, she had given him the only thing she had - had given him just the tiniest piece of the truth he needed to know about himself, about her.

But it was already too late. She was looking at Mal and allowing herself to envision something that tasted like a future and (may the gods help her) forever. So, she had to leave.

Because a Companion never lies to herself.

END


End file.
